How many Linux users are there, really?

[yonnie]

This article is a few years old. http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/09/de ... -myth.html I think our numbers have increased since then. I used to travel a lot and would see Linux being used on airplanes, cafes, hot-spots and even restaurants. I see it more often now. I suspect Linux has a higher usage count these days than Apple. If someone would write a search engine to look for Linux machines and do a count the results would be surprising imho. I visit 2 computer shops often and sometimes help-out, both places use Linux in their repairs and both places repair Macs too! Oddly, they get more Linux machines than MACs by a ratio of more than 2:1.

[xenopeek]

Sure, Wikipedia has a nice summary of operating system usage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_shar ... ms#Summary. Now I know Android is just using the Linux kernel, but it really kicks the competition in the guts

Of the 1.07 billion consumer computing devices shipped in 2012, Google Android took a 42% market share, followed by Apple devices at 24% (OS X and iOS), Microsoft at 20% and other vendors at 14%.

But how many people are using a Linux distro or their desktop or laptop? From the figures there, I'd say that would be approaching 30 million just for Ubuntu.

[mank_in]

This is another good stat of wikipedia : http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/sq ... ystems.htm
You can see user of LM who access wikimedia is 0.01% of total visitor per moth ( see Breakdown per platform for Mac and Linux )

[yonnie]

You think that if LM is based on Ubuntu the counts may be skewed some? Or does LM definitely always show as LM?

[xenopeek]

Those figures may be skewed, but I think this topic is about how many Linux users in general there are. So doesn't really matter

[yonnie]

It appears that there may be as many Linux or more users than Apple users. In that case, why don't companies such as Netflix, give us Linux users a higher priority rather than the ignore button?

[xenopeek]

Don't worry about it; they'll come around. Valve has confirmed it will be doing a "Steam Box", a Linux running silent and small computer that you can hook up to your TV or monitor to play Steam games on: http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/385214 ... -of-gaming. It's going to be open, so you can add hardware, replace the operating system, and so on. But imagine if this gains marketshare; the Netflix and such of this world will be scrambling to catch on.

[yonnie]

I been wondering what this 'steam & valve' has been about, thinks for enlightening me.
I hear a lot of emotional hope and no firm decisions in this article, he hasn't even decided on what the product is yet. This could be a long way-off, a long time to wait for a fizzle. Been there, done that. Beta was far better than vhs, vhs won. Look how long 8mm stayed around. I can't begin to count the losses in bad investments I've spent.

I think we should pressure companies for support as we are a large market and not getting smaller!

[xenopeek]

The Steam Box with Linux has been confirmed for this year; http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... px=MTI2NTk. Michael Larabel of Phoronix has been involved in recruiting Linux engineers for Valve to work on Steam for Linux last year; he's one of the best informed about what's going on with Valve and Linux.

[bimsebasse]

We need Google to open the gates for Linux on the desktop, whether we like it or not. They've already conquered the mobile market, when ChromeOS starts being widely available, I'm sure numbers will begin to rise for other Linux distros too.

[yonnie]

When you try to install netflix a screen will pop-up saying you need windows, mac os or chrome os. So netflix already supports google, why not the rest of the Linux world?

[xenopeek]

Android ≠ Linux. Android uses the Linux kernel, but Android apps actually run in the Dalvik virtual machine. That has little in common with the Linux programming environment, and is a kind of Java IIRC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_%28software%29

[bimsebasse]

An OS that uses the Linux kernel is a Linux OS. What else goes into it is irrelevant in that regard.

[xenopeek]

Yes, so what most of us mean by "Linux" is not just the Linux kernel. We mean the GNU/Linux operating system. Which you can happily run with another kernel without losing much of the user experience (Debian GNU/kFreeBSD or Debian GNU/Hurd). While if you take the Linux kernel and build another operating system around it, like Android has done, you end up with a different environment. Let's agree to have a different opinion on this.

[nomko]

Yes, so what most of us mean by "Linux" is not just the Linux kernel. We mean the GNU/Linux operating system.

True! But that's today's problem of people not fully understanding the difference between the Linux kernel and GNU/Linux operating system.

Which you can happily run with another kernel without losing much of the user experience (Debian GNU/kFreeBSD or Debian GNU/Hurd). While if you take the Linux kernel and build another operating system around it, like Android has done, you end up with a different environment. Let's agree to have a different opinion on this.

For me, Android is based on the Linux kernel. Like you said, take the kernel, build an environment around it, give it a name and it's not a new operating system!!! This mistake i have seen so many times, Android users claiming that the Android environment is an operating system on it's own as a completely new system. When someone explains those folks that it is an Android environment running on top of the Linux kernel, those users starts a which hunt and throw that person on the pyre.

We have to live with that i think...

[DrHu]

I don't think it matters that much to either vendors (Linux distributors) or users of Linux, since we can't expect to capture more than a few percent of the total number of users of computers (they user another OS, either Windows or Apples')

Since we are likely to be under 2-3% of OSs' in use or counted: nothing that we need to panic about
--no shareholders asking about the latest quarter results..

The only thing that might be of value to a user is to know which is the most popular Linux distribution, and if you happen to agree to that opinion, then you choose that selection or you pick or make your own /other choice.

I would also tend to treat Linux as the kernel + applications (a distributor's choice of build..)
--in that way we can compare OS's more easily such as windows vs OSX vs Linux (some version ) or just as a general comparison..

Many reviews and site comparisons exist..

[yonnie]

DrHu,
Did you look at the reports? Linux users garnered 40% of last years market, and rivals Apple in use of the internet. Your 1-2% comment is laughable. Linux is a serious market share contender. Companies who ignore Linux are doing so at their own peril.

[xenopeek]

Yeah, I still also having to get over the fact of over 400 million Android devices sold last year